Monday, 25 November 2013

More of my 8" fabric swatches from Spoonflower. In the past I have used postcards and vintage papers for collage and I thought it would be nice to have them on fabric for applique. Use bondaweb or wonder under, cut them out and iron them where required. They could be written on or stitched on. Since getting the swatch I have altered it, I'd designed it for a 8" swatch but I decided it would be more economical as a fat quarter so the lined and squared papers are wider than shown above.

I love how this blue swatch has printed, the colours in it look really nice. The starting point for this one was a brown faux snakeskin bag.

This one was a collage in a sketchbook.

Click on the images for a closer look and if you wish to purchase fabric it is available at Spoonflower.

Sunday, 24 November 2013

I had a fun day yesterday with friends when we went to Fat Quarters to make a Christmas surprise. The surprise was this quilted hanging 'let it snow'.

I finished it off today with a few differences - I put 'snow' on the gaps on the tree and used a machined star to quilt with. I made a dogs dinner of the edging but I'm going to leave it because I can [am lazy]. I will be using it as a large coaster on a table rather than a hanging.

Friday, 22 November 2013

I have some more fabric swatches to share with you. You may remember I did a calendar design which I posted about, well the swatch above is a different fabric and design. It uses the same birds in different places, has a very similar background, and the colours are slightly different. This one was designed for a regular fabric, the other one was for a cotton canvas where the dimensions are different so it didn't fit the usual fabrics very well.

The city scape below looks like a snowy winter scene.

The design below is quite an old one but I'd not had it proofed at Spoonflower. The background was inspired by a board game and the butterflies and flowers inspired by brooches.

Thursday, 21 November 2013

I think the last blanket I blogged about was about 2 years ago..... anyway continuing from then, this is another blanket made from swatches. Many years ago I used to design motif patterns for home machine knitters and these are some of the test swatches. I no longer have the machines, so I no longer knit, but motifs seem to be back in fashion. The swatches on this blanket were made on a single bed machine which means there were loose threads at the back on the repeat patterns so I attached the swatches to a fleece blanket with stitching. I've also embroidered most of the edges of the swatches with stitches like raised chain band, chain stitch, fly stitch etc to try and neaten them up a bit.

Tuesday, 19 November 2013

I've been creating some mitten designs for a gift wrap contest as Spoonflower. When I read the info earlier I'm sure it said a ditsy print featuring mittens in a scattered pattern. I did the one with the washing line below and after loading it realised it wasn't a scattered pattern. I've just uploaded the one above and now the contest says 'Create a design for gift wrap featuring images of mittens', so the first one I loaded would have been OK after all. So two mitten designs, which one do you prefer? To see all the designs in the contest [and other contests] go to Spoonflower [although this contest is not open just yet it will be soon]

The inspiration for these mitten designs came from the lovely felt mittens by Amy at nanaCompany. She is offering a free pattern for actual mittens.

Monday, 18 November 2013

On the top one I have used some hand printed fabric, this was hand printed onto vintage spotty fabric. I made a texture printing plate from some ready cut foam flowers found in a kiddies craft pack - ie stick them to cardboard, I blogged about it in May. I hand embroidered parts of the fabric.

The pouch below is made up of vintage fabrics and crazy patchwork. I was giving my sister a lesson [the blind leading the blind is the expression that comes to mind] on crazy patchwork - I pinned and she stitched. I think I am improving my technique.